The eThekwini Municipality draft budget for 2025/26, dubbed “building and service delivery budget”, is expected to prioritise infrastructure development, job creation, and social upliftment.

The total proposed budget for 2025/2026 is R71.3 billion (including entities), which includes an operating budget of R64.2 billion and a capital budget of R7.1 billion.

At a council meeting on Monday, Mayor Cyril Xaba said he would like to turn eThekwini into a construction site.

Xaba said the budget also reflects inclusive growth and economic resilience, and described the budget process as “difficult to balance”, considering the current challenging economic climate.

He said it also focused on expanding public transport networks, support for small businesses, and decent human settlements.

Recent floods have caused extensive damage to electricity, water, and sanitation infrastructure. Rapid urbanisation continues to place new demands on infrastructure, he added.

“One of the key national policy developments that will impact this budget is the National Treasury’s Trading Services Reform, which seeks to enhance the financial sustainability of our utilities such as water and sanitation, and electricity.”

As part of this reform, municipalities must improve cost recovery mechanisms, reduce inefficiencies, and ensure that tariffs reflect the true cost of service provision while remaining affordable to vulnerable communities.

eThekwini could receive R3.3 billion for reforms in the 2025/2026 Medium-Term Revenue and Expenditure Framework (MTREF).

Capital budget

Electricity: R859 million

Water: R1.15 billion

Sanitation: R550 million

Cleansing and Solid Waste: R375 million

Engineering Services: R482 million

Human Settlements: R749 million

Community and Emergency Services: R590 million

eThekwini Transport Authority (ETA): R747 million

Operating budget

Electricity: R23.3 billion

Water: R9.98 billion

Sanitation: R2.4 billion

Cleansing and Solid Waste: R2.4 billion

Engineering Services: R2.67 billion

Human Settlements: R971.8 million

Community and Emergency Services: R7.18 billion

eThekwini Transport Authority (ETA): R1.63 billion

Democratic Liberal Congress (DLC) Leader Patrick Pillay said he did not support tariff increases that would bring about greater hardship for residents.

Pillay said people's voices must be heard, and this process will allow the public to actively participate in determining the budget outcomes.

He added that the multibillion-rand draft budget had very critical capital projects in terms of water and electricity infrastructure rehabilitation as well as an operational budget for repairs, cleaning, and maintenance.

“This is critical to enhance service delivery. The public participation process must be meaningful and constructive. We also lambasted the huge unfunded mandate costs of R1.2 billion, the high water loss of 56%, and the owing government debt to the city,” said Pillay.

ActionSA KZN Provincial Chairperson Zwakele Mncwango said the draft budget had a blatant disregard for its residents by pushing forward exorbitant tariff increases that will further burden struggling households and businesses.

“While we aim to prioritise residents, other political parties and the eThekwini Metro continues on its destructive path of financial mismanagement and wasteful spending. This municipality has a notorious history of writing off unauthorised, irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure,” Mncwango said.

Democratic Alliance (DA) Councillor Andre Beetge said one cannot lose sight that the core inflation rate is presently 3.5%, with headline inflation projected to average around 4.5%.

“We also hear that Nersa will be enforcing an electricity increase of 12.74% and Umgeni will burden the city with an increase of 13.5% against water, but why should the already overburdened ratepayers of this city be expected to foot the bill for the failure of national and state-owned entities to properly manage their institutions?”

Beetge said the city is losing 56% of its water, through non-revenue water.

“Taps are running freely as there are no measures to monitor or control non-revenue water, yet we are again expecting, through these increases, for those who contribute to the fiscus to bridge these losses?” he said.

“Whether you listen to the Auditor-General, Public Protector, or Presidential Working Group, all are in agreement that the city is broken, that we need to cut away the fat, we must forego luxuries, eliminate exercises like expensive mayoral breakaways in the Drakensberg, we must plan to save to fix,” Beetge said.

zainul.dawood@inl.co.za